Unit 4: Nationalism, Industrialism, and Imperialism

Unit 4: Nationalism, Industrialism, and Imperialism

Lesson H: Social Responses to an Industrialized World

Student Resource: Historical Investigation —The Communist Manifesto

Historical Investigation —The Communist Manifesto

Directions: In order to answer the focus question, you must first consider the source, purpose, and content of each historical document. You must also consider how the content of each document corroborates (strengthens) or contradicts evidence found in other documents. Examine all the documents and then answer the questions that follow. This will assist you in answering the focus question at the end of the investigation.

Focus Question: To what extent was The Communist Manifestoa response to the changes of the 19th century?

All of the following documents are excerpts from The Communist Manifesto, written by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx in 1847. It is the founding document of Communism that analyzes class struggle and the problems of capitalism.

Identify the source and type of document

Document 1: Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. . .

The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old one.

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. . .

Source:

1. What is the message of the document?

1. How does the historical context influence the message of the document?

1. How might this document help you answer the focus question?

Focus Question: To what extent was The Communist Manifesto a response to the changes of the 19th century?

Document 2: Excerpt from Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians

. . . The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic [peaceful] relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment.” It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

. . . The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. . .

Source:

1. What is the message of the document?

1. How does the historical context influence the message of the document?

1. How might this document help you answer the focus question?

Focus Question: To what extent was The Communist Manifesto a response to the changes of the 19th century?

Document 3: Excerpt from Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists

In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?

The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other working-class parties.

• They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.
• They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
• The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

. . . The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. . .

. . . as the exploitation of one individual by another will also be put an end to, the exploitation of one nation by another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. . .

Source:

1. What is the message of the document?

1. How does the historical context influence the message of the document?

1. How might this document help you answer the focus question?

Focus Question: To what extent was The Communist Manifesto a response to the changes of the 19th century?

Document 4: Excerpt from Chapter II. Proletarians and Communists

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal responsibility of all to work…

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another... In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

Source:

1. What is the message of the document?

1. How does the historical context influence the message of the document?

1. How might this document help you answer the focus question?

Focus Question: To what extent was The Communist Manifesto a response to the changes of the 19th century?

Document 5: Excerpt from Chapter IV. Position of the Communists in Relation to Various Existing Opposition Parties

. . .In short, the Communists everywhere support every revolutionary movement against the existing social and political order of things.

In all these movements, they bring to the front, as the leading question in each, the property question, no matter what its degree of development at the time.

Finally, they labour everywhere for the union and agreement of the democratic parties of all countries.

The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win.

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!

Source:

1. What is the message of the document?

1. How does the historical context influence the message of the document?

1. How might this document help you answer the focus question?

Focus Question: To what extent was The Communist Manifesto a response to the changes of the 19th century?

Now, consider your responses to the questions as you viewed each of the documents from The Communist Manifesto.

• Identify the source and type of document.
• What is the message of the document?
• How is this document influenced by the context of the 19th century?
• How might this document help you answer the focus question?

Answer the following question based on your review of documents 1 through 5.

How does The Communist Manifesto respond to the changes of the 19th century?

• Think about the characteristics and changes of the 19th century identified in the sources and from your own background knowledge.
• Think about how the context of the 19th century might influence the sources.
• Analyze the extent to whichThe Communist Manifestowas a response to the changes of the 19th century.
• Include details and examples to support your answer.

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